


Your Heart, Walking Around

by PorcupineGirl



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Coming Out, Episode Tag, M/M, Missing Scene, post-3.25, supportive bob and alicia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-21 21:40:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13152573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PorcupineGirl/pseuds/PorcupineGirl
Summary: Bob is so proud of his son for so, so, so very many reasons. The Stanley Cup is on the list now, but it's not even in the top five. Maybe not in the top ten.Then he turns around and sees them together.Yeah, definitely not even in the top ten.





	Your Heart, Walking Around

**Author's Note:**

> *sniffle* H-hey guys. *sniff* *hiccup* How's everyone's Christmas? Or Monday? Yeah? *blows nose* Me too.
> 
> Remember how in panel seven, we could see Bob talking to some reporter about his amazing son? What do you mean, you were too mesmerized by Jack's so-in-love-and-radiantly-happy expression to notice anything else?
> 
> Title from this quote by author Elizabeth Stone: “Making the decision to have a child - it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”
> 
> (Yeah, I can't believe I got a chapter and a ficlet up in one night, either! My brain is just so desperate to think of something other than family and Christmas presents, tbh.)

"…never forgave me for letting him sit in it, given the picture they published of her pulling him out, but what can I say? Obviously it was good luck…"

Cynthia is clearly not listening anymore, her eyes having drifted to a spot over his shoulder. Her smile is fixed, maybe even turning into a grimace. The cameraman is still focused on Bob, so he chuckles a little even as he trails off, but it doesn't bring her attention back to him.

"I'm just glad she and I could both be here to see it," he tries.

Bob Zimmermann would like to think that, for as much professional success as he's seen, he's never let his head get _too_ big. But he's definitely never had a reporter ignore him so completely—and under these circumstances, it's frankly a little alarming. He turns, half expecting to see someone with their face sliced open by an errant skate…

Only to find his son doing exactly what so many other players have done tonight, what Bob has seen countless players do over the years in this situation: kissing the person he loves the most in the world. Hell, they're not being half—a _quarter_ —as dirty about it as Bob's seen in his day, barely any tongue involved at all, but he knows that doesn't matter. He turns back to the reporter.

"Excuse me, Cynthia," he says, and her name seems to startle her back to awareness. "I'm sure you'll understand that my family is my priority on a night like tonight."

She blinks at him as he graces her with his most charming press smile and turns back around.

They've stopped kissing, but they're still wrapped in each other's arms, gazing, enraptured. Bob knows that the rest of the world might as well not exist to them in this moment; he's certainly been there. Tears spring to his eyes as the full weight of it hits him—sure, Jack has a Stanley Cup, that's wonderful and all. But Jack has _Eric_. Lord knows Bob would give back every Cup ring, every Art Ross if that's what he had to do to keep Alicia by his side, and the fact that Jack has _that_ now… God, Bob would give it all back with interest to make sure his son gets to keep this.

"Eric!" he calls, arms outstretched as he slides across the ice to greet his future son-in-law (please, _please_ ). Eric and Jack both startle, and just for a second, just for a _split second_ the terror in their eyes when they turn toward him makes his smile falter.

He will burn this ice rink down, he will dismantle the entire NHL piece by fucking piece if it's what he has to do to make sure he never sees that look in their eyes again.

Luckily, as soon as they see that it's him and he's smiling, the terror fades, replaced by sheepish smiles and blushing.

Bob has been in the public eye for a long, long time, in many different capacities, so he likes to think he knows exactly what he's doing at a time like this: Big smile, wide open arms, an overly-enthusiastic grab for Eric's shoulders the _instant_ he's within reach and then he's pulling Eric into a huge, tight, bear of a hug. No back-slapping, no one-armed side-squeezes here.

Eric laughs, the kind that keeps you from sobbing, and his nails dig into Bob's shoulders.

"Thank god you're here," he murmurs, and Eric's only reply is a strangled sort of noise.

When he finally looks up, it's to see his son's face shifting through a lot of very complicated things as he wipes at his eyes.

Bob pulls back, but before he's even fully released Eric he has one arm around Jack. He's already hugged Jack several times tonight, and the only thing he has to prove with this one is that nothing between them has changed in the past ten minutes, so it's quick and one-armed, though no less tight.

He pushes Jack away, holding him at arm's length and looking him up and down.

"Well, I know you're not hiding a ring under your padding, so where is it? In the locker room?"

Jack's eyes widen, his mouth opening and closing comically.

"Or is that for your Cup Day?" Bob asks with a wink, releasing Jack to turn toward Eric. Eric, whose cheeks are now flaming red, one hand over his eyes.

Jack manages to recover enough to slide his arm around Eric, pulling him in tight to his side. Eric's hand drops and he looks up at Jack almost automatically. Adoration shines in both of their eyes through their clear embarrassment.

"Papa, stop," Jack says, pulling his eyes away from Eric reluctantly. "You know he has a whole year of school left. If I told you where it's hidden, I'd have to move it, and honestly I can't think of anywhere else to put it where he won't find it for a year."

Eric finally just bursts into tears, burying his face in Jack's chest. Jack's arms wrap around him immediately as he bends down to murmur in Eric's ear.

Bob isn't done with them yet, but he takes just a half-step back for the moment. He wishes he could avert his eyes, give them a modicum of privacy (or at least the illusion of it), but he's not ready to let himself see anyone else on the ice around them. He doesn't want to know, not yet, not right at the moment. He keeps his eyes trained on two of the only three people in this building who matter at all to him right now.

When Eric is laughing again, wiping at his eyes as Jack smiles and ruffles his hair a little with the hand that's not clinging protectively to his waist, Bob steps in close again.

"Do you have a plan?" he murmurs through his smile, keeping his tone friendly and conspiratorial.

The fear creeps back into Eric's eyes, but Jack's are sharp, defiant. "No one else here has a _plan_ ," he says, and Bob puts a placating hand on his shoulder.

"No, they don't," he says. "And you don't have to, either. I was just asking. Remember—" He shifts so he's looking at both of them. "—absolutely _anything at all_ either of you need, your mother and I will be there at the drop of a hat." He gives Jack's shoulder a squeeze. "Now, I know these reporters are dying to get us together, so why don't you and I head over to the other end of the rink and find someone over there to talk to?" He claps his other hand on Eric's shoulder. "Alicia was looking for you a bit ago, you know. I'm not sure where she got off to in this crowd; you should text her and—oh, never mind!"

As much as he's been trying not to notice anything that's happening around them, his eyes have been trained to react to his wife waving in his peripheral vision for decades. He looks up to see her coming up directly behind their son, beaming.

"Darling!" he exclaims, startling Jack and Eric into looking her way. "Jack and I are going to go do a press round, I was just going to have Eric come find you."

Alicia's eyes are watery as she pulls Eric close. He goes happily; Bob loves Eric, but it's Alicia he's really bonded with over the past couple of months.

"Come on, son." Bob tugs at Jack's elbow. He'd actually been planning to do exactly this when he finished with Cynthia, and he hopes Jack realizes that and doesn't think he's trying anything. But Jack just bends down to kiss Eric and his mother both on the temple and then follows willingly.

Bob finally dares to look away from his family, scanning the crowd to find his favorite reporters.

If people were staring before—and he knows without a doubt that they were—they've finally lost interest. A few are still looking toward Eric and Alicia, but the Falconers just won their first Stanley Cup. There will be difficult days ahead, but right now there are twenty-three players and a handful of coaches and managers for the press to focus on. Each of those people has family and loved ones on the ice, each one is celebrating in their own way, each is talking to somebody. Jack's story is only one of the stories here, and right at the moment his story includes a game-winning goal that clinched his position as the top scorer of the playoffs. 

His story might also include a beautiful kiss at center ice, but as Bob waves to a friend from Sportsnet to whom he'd promised the first father-and-son interview of the night, he knows that the kiss will be a story to be told another time.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to cry about the update in general in the comments, or cry with me [on Tumblr](http://porcupine-girl.tumblr.com).


End file.
